About INFOBITS
Infobits is an electronic service of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ITS Teaching and Learning's Center for Instructional Technology. Each month the CIT's Information Resources Consultant monitors and selects from a number of information and instructional technology sources that come to her attention and provides brief notes for electronic dissemination to educators.
Campus Information Technology Practices and Solutions Database
Preparation for Implementing Web-Based Curricula
Visible Knowledge Project
New Journal on Electronic Publishing in Academe
New Journal on Information and Computer Sciences Teaching and Learning
Internet2 Update
Recommended Reading
CAMPUS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PRACTICES AND SOLUTIONS DATABASE
EDUCAUSE has launched a new database, Effective Practices and Solutions (EPS), "to facilitate the sharing of innovative technology solutions as well as IT-related practices that our members have found to be effective on their campuses." You can browse the database by subject or institution and contribute solutions from your own institution. The service is available at http://www.educause.edu/ep/
EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology. The current membership comprises more than 1,900 colleges, universities, and educational organizations, including 200 corporations, with 15,000 active members. EDUCAUSE has offices in Boulder, CO, and Washington, DC. Learn more about EDUCAUSE at http://www.educause.edu/.
PREPARATION FOR IMPLEMENTING WEB-BASED CURRICULA
The article "Twelve Important Questions to Answer Before You Offer a Web Based Curriculum" (by M. Khris McAlister, Julio C. Rivera, and Stephen F. Hallam in Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, vol. IV, no. II, Summer 2001) "outlines twelve key questions that those responsible for developing and offering Web based education at academic institutions will need to address." The questions online curricula planners and administrators should answer include:
"Will the Web curriculum offered be congruent with the institution's
mission and strategy?"
"How will you compensate instructors for offering or administering Web
courses?"
"How will student progress be assessed?"
"Where will the class materials be maintained?"
McAlister is a Professor and Rivera is an Associate Professor in the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Accounting and Information Systems. Hallam is Dean of the College of Business Administration at The University of Akron. The complete article is available online at http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/summer42/mcalister42.html
The Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration is published quarterly by the Center for Distance Education, The State University of West Georgia, 1600 Maple Street, Carrollton, GA 30118 USA; Web: http://www.westga.edu/~distance/jmain11.html
The Visible Knowledge Project (VKP) is a five-year collaborative project focused on "improving the quality of college and university teaching through a focus on both student learning and faculty development in technology-enhanced environments."
In the course of the project faculty on twenty-five campuses will "design and conduct systematic classroom research experiments focused on how certain student-centered pedagogies, enhanced by a variety of new technologies, improve higher order thinking skills and significant understanding in the study of history, literature, culture, and related interdisciplinary fields."
Resources generated by the project will include:
-- a set of curriculum modules representing the reflective work of the
faculty investigators;
-- three research monographs capturing the findings of the project;
-- a set of multimedia faculty development resources;
-- a set of guides, directed at students, for novice learners to better
use primary historical and cultural material on the Internet; and
-- a set of online faculty development and support seminars, for the
investigating faculty, faculty on the core campuses, and
graduate students participating in the Project's professional
development programs.
For more information about VKP, link to http://crossroads.georgetown.edu/vkp/
The Visible Knowledge Project is based at Georgetown University's Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS). For more information about CNDLS, see their website at http://candles.georgetown.edu/
Project partners include the American Studies Association's Crossroads Project, the Center for History and New Media (George Mason University), the American Social History Project (CUNY Graduate Center), the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and the TLT Group with the American Association for Higher Education.
NEW JOURNAL ON ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING IN ACADEME
Perspectives in Electronic Publishing (PeP) is a new journal with an emphasis on publishing in academe. Topics addressed will include: the publishers, the publishing process and intermediary services, research and technical developments, and legal issues. The journal is available online, at no cost, at http://aims.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pep.nsf
PeP is edited by Steve Hitchcock, IAM (Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia) Research Group, Department of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom; tel: +44 (0)23 8059 3256; fax: +44 (0)23 8059 2865; email: sh94r@ecs.soton.ac.uk; Web: http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~sh94r/
NEW JOURNAL ON INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SCIENCES TEACHING AND LEARNING
Innovations in Teaching And Learning in Information and Computer Sciences Electronic Journal (ITALICS) is a new a peer-reviewed online journal published by the Learning and Teaching Support Network Centre for Information and Computer Sciences (LTSN-ICS). ITALICS Electronic Journal will contain papers on current information and computer sciences teaching, including: developments in computer-based learning and assessment; open learning, distance learning, collaborative learning, and independent learning approaches; staff development; and the impact of subject centers on learning and teaching. The journal is available, at no cost, at http://www.ics.ltsn.ac.uk/pub/italics/index.html
LTSN-ICS was established to promote best practice in learning and teaching in UK universities and other higher education institutions. It has a particular mission to develop and disseminate initiatives in the delivery of learning to students. LTSN-ICS is hosted by the University of Ulster in partnership with Loughborough University, the University of Warwick, Heriot-Watt University, and the University of North London. For more information, contact LTSN-ICS, Faculty of Informatics, University of Ulster, Shore Road, Newtownabbey, Co Antrim, BT37 0QB UK; tel: 028-9036-8020; fax: 028-9036-8206; email: ltsn-ics@ulst.ac.uk; Web: http://www.ics.ltsn.ac.uk/
In "Internet2: The Once and Future Net" (Technology Review, July 10, 2001) Daniel Tynan shows how several campuses are currently using Internet2 to deliver distance-learning applications and engage in collaborative research projects. Internet2 was launched in 1996 to provide super-fast connections, to "defeat geography and circumvent the barriers of time and space," allowing people to collaborate and access information in ways not possible using today's Internet. The complete article is available on the web at http://www.technologyreview.com/web/tynan/tynan071001.asp
Technology Review [ISSN 1099-274X] is published ten times a year by Technology Review, Inc., a Massachusetts Institute of Technology enterprise. To subscribe, contact Technology Review, 201 Vassar St., W59-200 Cambridge, MA 02139 USA; tel: 617-253-8250; fax 617-258-5850; Web: http://www.technologyreview.com/
"Recommended Reading" lists items that have been recommended to me or that Infobits readers have found particularly interesting and/or useful, including books published by Infobits subscribers. Send your recommendations to kotlas@email.unc.edu for possible inclusion in this column.
Universal Design in Education: Teaching Nontraditional Students
by Frank G. Bowe
Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 2000; ISBN: 0-89789-688-2
The term "universal design" means a concept or philosophy for designing
and delivering products and services that are usable by people with the
widest possible range of functional capabilities, which include
products and services that are directly usable(without requiring
assistive technologies) and products and services that are made usable
with assistive technologies.
-- definition number 17 in section 3 of the Assistive Technology Act of
1998 (PL 105-393)
Bowe introduces the reader to the principles of universal design and how they can be applied to education. Universal design offers multiple ways for students to interact with and respond to curricula and materials.
The portion of the book that deals with web accessibility and ebooks contains materials from "Accessibility of Information in Electronic Textbooks for All Students" (Chapter VI of the Texas Education Agency's "Report on the Computer Network Study Project" (1999)) The document is available online at http://www.tsbvi.edu/textbooks/tea1999.htm